*** A ***

Add-on - in tournaments with re-buy, after defined time ending re-buy stage, we can buy additional chips; we say „to take add-on”

Advertise – literally - advertising; showing our competitors our own cards after successful bluff, with hope that when we will have strong cards, the rivals won’t believe it and will add their chips to the pool more readily.

All-in – putting all tokens into the pool

Ante – obligatory stake paid by all players into the pool before the deal, we pay it irrespective of blinds, it is found on later stages of tournaments or in such games as STUD.

*** B ***

backdoor – look – „runner-runner”

Bad beat – you have straight at turn, and your rival  has two pairs, you play all-in and your competitor follows full at „river”. It is bad beat, you have been an important favorite, but you have lost.

Bankroll – your money allocated for poker game

Bet in the dark –raising blindfold – this move is possible only when we play live, when we raise the pool before seeing the next card

Big slick – ace and king

Blind – the rate put blindfold before the deal; the player sitting on the left of the dealer brings in small blind – SB, when the player sitting on the left of SB gives big blind stake.(BB)

Bluff – we do not have to explain it ; )

board – „the table”, five cards visible on the table

boat-full house

broadway – the biggest straight – AKQJT

bullet-ace

button – a field meaning the dealer – the player who deals cards in given game

buy-in - registration fee to the tournament, or min/max buy-in – minimal/maximum amount of money you can join the table with

*** C ***

Call station – a player who calls all the time, who checks everything and each time; look for players like that and take their money

Cash-in – exchanging money for tokens

Cash-out- exchanging tokens for money

Catch – to catch the card, e.g. when you have followed the suit at river, in such a moment your frustrated rivals often say: “nice catch”

chips =tokens

clubs

cowboys – a pair of kings in a hand

cut-off – a position on the left of the dealer

*** D ***

Dealer – the player who deals cards  when we play online or in a casino  - where this person is called a croupier. It is conventional name and means the player who plays as last on every stage of a game (except for pre-flop)

Deck- 52-cards pack

Deuce=duck

Diamonds

Dominated hand – for example, having A4 you see AJ732 on the table, you have the highest pair but you probably will lose with the player who has A9; your hand is dominated with reference to A9 – you have weaker kicker

Draw – collecting cards, waiting for a card that will give us a win, we most often talk about straight draw (you have 75 in your hand and AT 65 on the table – you wait for 8 or 3) or flush draw (following suit – you have 4 cards of one suit and you wait for the fifth one)

Drawing head – it is often mistake of weak players, drawing in situation when you can’t win, even if you meet <your> card – for instance, you follow straight, but your rival already has full house…

***E***

Early position – in a game with 10 players we talk about three players on the left of blind that they occupy early position – they play as first in each round, what is obviously disadvantageous for them.
EV – expected value – a concept describing a value of our decision in a long term; in short –if I propose you heads and tails game, offering two dollars when you win and demanding only one dollar when you lose – you won’t have any guarantee that you will earn some money in near moves. (it shows random nature of this game). But you know, that in a long term it will be very profitable. You may even define exactly the expected value of one turn – for example: you should win 50 times during 100 throws and lose the same amount, and in the same time earn 100 dollars and lose 50. You expect to win 50 dollars per saldo in 100 moves, so EV of one throw is 0,5 $. The key task for poker player is taking decisions of “positive EV”

*** F *** 
Fish – weak player, a sucker

Flop – the second round of  the game, also three cards appearing on the table in this round

Flush=suit

Fold – pass

Freeroll – the tournament which you take a part in for free, but you win real prizes, poker rooms organize freerolls for promotional purposes

Freezout – traditional formula of poker competition, after paying a fee we get chips; when we lose it, we are down. Opposite to freezout is the tournament with re-buy, in which, during defined time, we can lose all our tokens and enter the game again (to take re-buy)

***G***

Guthsot- look: inside straight draw

*H***

Hand- it has two meanings: 1 cards you have got (e.g. nice hand), 2.particular deal (e.g we play 60 hands an hour)

Heads up- a game 1/1

Hearts

High card – the highest card - a combination weaker than 1 pair, for instance: your hand – AJ, the table- Q 9732 – your combination is described as “ace high” or “high card ace”

High roller – a person who plays by high rates

Hole cards – cards which are not visible for others

***I***

Inside straight draw – by the table: 6 8 A with card & T you have inside straight draw – gutshot – ‘inside draw”, only the nine gives you a straight, when with card 7 9 you have open-ended straight draw

open-ended straight draw – you will get straight thanks to ten as well as five, and as we can easily guess, chances for success by inside straight draw are two times less than by open-ended straight draw.

isolate – raising aimed at staying in a game with only one competitor

*** J ***

Jam – to raise as much as it is possible at the given moment

***K***

Kicker – a side card deciding about the victory, look an example under the banner of ”dominated hand” – nine and four are there the kickers

***L***

Late position – in 10-persons game we talk about two players sitting on the right of blinds ( dealer and cut-off) that they occupy late position – they play as last in each round, what is certainly  advantageous for them

Limp – to limp- to enter a game before flop by testing (call) only big blind rate (when nobody has raised earlier)

Loose – style of game consisting in playing many combinations; opposite: tight

***M***

To make a move – to bluff

Maniac- mad player – extremely aggressive player raising almost each stake independently on a card he has, maniac is either very weak or very good player.

Middle position - - look the keyword/entry/headword “early position” and ‘late position”- middle position, as the name tells itself, is in-between situation

Monster - very strong card

***N***

Nuts – card which can’t lose this deal, independently on what the rivals have. Having nut try to get from your rivals as much money as it is possible. We often say – nut straight or nut flush – the best possible straight or suit

***O***

Offsuit – cards from different suits in your hand

Outs- cards which will give us winning combination if we meet it; for example: you have KH Qh and after flop 8h 7h 2c you make semi-bluff all-in, the rival tests showing the pair 9c 9s. You have 15 <outs> in this situation – you will win if there appears one of three kings, queens or one from 9 hearts

Overcard – when you have AK after flop T92 you have 2 overcards

Overpair – having QQ after flop you have overpair

***P***

Pocket pair – a pair in a hand

Pot-pula

Pre-flop –first stage of a game, when players see only their own cards

***Q***
quads – four of a kind

*** R ***

Rainbow- 3 or 4 cards of different suits

Rake – the earner of the poker room, that is commission collected from every deal. The principles of collecting rake differ depending on individual poker room, but usually it is taken an amount 5% of pool but not bigger than $3. So, from pool $200 it will be taken a commission $3, of $60- also $3, of $20 - $1 and so on. There is very often applied rule “no flop no drop” – poker room does not collect commissions of deals ending before the flop is shown.

Rake back- return of rack/the commission. Some poker rooms offer rake back as a form of rewarding loyal players paying attention to their account, e.g. 20% rake they paid last month. For “big” players rake back has fundamental importance, significantly bigger than all other bonuses offered by the poker room – their rake back many times exceeds an amount $1000.

Re-buy – possibility to buy some more tokens, when we weren’t lucky in a tournament. Look also: freezout

ring game (Cash game) – so called small table, card-table – the table for game to Money (opposite: tournaments)

river – the last, fourth stage of game, or the fifth card which appears in this phase on a table

rock – „tight” player to excess

runner-runner –a situation when you form your combination drawing 2 needed cards on turn and river; for example you have two spades in your hand, only one appears on flop, but turn and river are two next spades giving you a suit

***S***

Satellite – a qualifying tournament – a win in it is a fee to another, bigger competition. E.g., registration fee to the biggest poker events – World Series of Poker and World Poker Tour  amounts adequately $ 10 000 and $ 25.000. Obviously, hardly anybody can afford such expense, but thanks to satellites we can win “entry package” (registration fee + accommodation in Vegas + pocket money)  for only a few dollars

semi-bluff – it is a bluff with a card that won’t put us in hopeless situation, when a rival will test us.  Look the deal with KhQh under the keyword of “outs”

set- three of a kind when we have two cards in a hand and only one on the table; a combination where two the same cards are lying on the table and we have the third one in a hand is sometimes defined as “trips”, although some people use all the three names (set, trips, three of a kind) interchangeably.

Shark- very good player

Short-stack- a player who is running out of chips

Sit&go – look: mtt

spades

stack – an amount of chips we have on the table (also virtual chips in a game online)

Steal – with this notion we define a situation when all players have passed after flop and a player on cut-off position or a dealer raises “to steal blinds”

Suited – cards of the same suit

***T***

Tell – behavior of a player which gives away his cards, e.g. some players look straight in your eyes, but when they bluff having “monster” and want to draw us into a game, they run their eye over corners (as if they are not interested in the game); this popular tell we often describe as “strong means weak”, “weak means strong”, a perfect example of “tell” is the final deal in the movie “Rounders”. Teddy KGB gives himself away by the way he eats oreo biscuits; )

Tight – style of a game that consists in playing only the best combinations, opposite: loose

Tilt – when we lose some money and rather than go away from the table and cool down, we start playing aggressively and unreasonably in order to make up for the loss as quickly as possible. It obviously ends in even heavier loss.

Turn – the fourth phase of a game/ the fourth card on the table

***U***

Utg- under the gun – the player sitting on the left of big blind is on utg position, he takes decision as first in pre-flop phase
*** W ***

Wheel – straight in a combination: A2345

*** X ***

***Y***

***Z***
The most popular acronyms used by poker players in the internet chat  rooms and on forum

btw - by the way

cu - see you
fu - fuck you
gc - good call
gf - good fold
gg - good game 
gl - good luck

Lol – laughing out loud –acronym used currently so often that its meaning has been completely covered up, people type “lol” with no relation to  circumstances, when they don’t feel like laughing or just don’t know what to say.

N1- nice one – it was good

Nh – nice hand

Nl – no-limit

o- of-suit – cards of different suits

omg – oh my god – (what a deal)

rotfl – rolling on the floor laughing

s-suited – cards of one suit

str8 – straight

tx/thx - thanks

vnh - very nice hand

wp - well played
ty - thank you

u2 - you too
yw - your welcome

zzzzz – hurry up

________________________________________
Customary names of combinations:

AA-American Airlines, bullets

KK, cowboys

AK – big slick, recently also Anna Kournikova – she looks great, but never wins ;)

QQ- ladies

KQ – marriage

AT – Johnny Moss

KJ – Kojak

QJ – Maverick

Q7-Computer Hand

T2 - Doyle Brunson – hand  that have secured a victory for Doyle in World Series of Poker 1976 and 1977

88 - snowmen

77 – scythes